Brunne cookies Part 2

December 6th 2018

I'm back and what a whirlwind time it's been.  My lovely sister who lives in America was here on business for 3 days and had last night as her only free time to visit.  She arrived at 9.30 pm and left at 8 am this morning.  Needless to say, being the first time in years, it was just the two of us, we stayed up most of the night chatting.  She broke me, hence this late post!

Traditionally, the Norwegians bake 7 biscuits or cookies if you will in the run up to Christmas, making the whole of December smell wonderful.  My children, especially my son loves coming home to the latest smell and newest freshly baked batch of whatever it is that takes my fancy to bake.

Most families have their favourite bakes that they have to make every year and occasionally a new one creeps in.  ME, well in the past five years I have experimented a lot and there are 3 or 4 that I will always make and if for some reason I have not, then it is missed.  The remaining biscuits I choose from the huge Scandinavian variety that can be found.  It's good to mix it up a bit and try our neighbouring countries wares.

Melt butter

Today I share with you an old recipe, not even sure where it has come from but I use it quite frequently.  In this biscuit, you choose your spice, one or the other:  ground cardamom or ground cinnamon.  For me, it's the cardamon every time, but many prefer the cinnamon.




'Brunne' cookies 
meaning brown cookies


You will need:

Butter should be golden brown

225g butter
190g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp of EITHER ground cardamon OR ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
350g plain flour
sugar for rolling the dough in
1/4 of chosen spice cardamon/cinnamon as above also for rolling dough in

Add the sugar

♥  Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat, stirring for about 12 minutes until the butter begins to turn a light golden brown colour, stick with it, it will change colour.  Allow to cool, then cover and chill for 30 minutes.

♥  Mix the sugar into the cool butter until it looks like clumps of golden sugar.

♥ Beat in the eggs, tartar, bicarbonate of soda, ground spice, vanilla and salt.

♥  Mix in the flour to the mixture, then cover and chill for a minimum of 2 hours.

Once sugar added, it should
look like it is in clumps

♥  This dough is very hard and cannot be rolled out at all, it is therefore not suitable for use with cookie cutters either.  You need to literally cut a small amount away from the roll and then roll it in your hands to form a small ball about 3 cm in diameter.  Roll the balls in a mixture of sugar and the same spice you used for the dough.

♥  Place on alined baking sheet in a preheated oven at 190 Celcius and bake for about 10-12 minutes or until just golden brown.


♥  Cool on a wire rack and place in an airtight container.  I find these biscuits are best stored with baking paper between the layers.  Depending on the size you rolled the balls you should be able to make about 45-50 biscuits.  These biscuits will turn soft quite quickly so best eaten in the first 2-3 days or alternatively they do freeze well.

Mix your chosen spice and sugar well, not like this!!

I forgot to take a photo of the rolled biscuits on the lined baking tray, but I am sure you can envisage that!  I did not use all the dough in one go, so may come back when I bake the next batch and add in this photo, would that be a good idea?  EDIT:  space the dough balls well apart from each other as they do spread when baking.

As said, I was a tad broken this morning and these are not my best effort, but what these lack in appearance they really make up for in taste, they really are wonderful and smell so much of Christmas.  I hope you give them a go and let me know if you do.  They are worth it.

Et voila, brunne biscuits

 ♥  If you need me, I'll be napping trying to recover 

from my sister's visit  ♥